poll Should NP downvoting be anonymous?

[redemo]

Simple question. Do you think downvoting and upvoting should be anonymous on Namepros, yes or no?

 

[Paul]

Am I right that if you can leave 5 upvotes, you can also leave 5 downvotes?

No.

Why not make it so you can leave less downvotes, or make it so they just count for less.

That's how it works. You can't downvote as much as you can upvote.

 

[Future Sensors]

Personally, I don't like quick replies and downvotes being anonymous. At the same time, I'm a little worried about suddenly deanonymizing a bunch of data that was previously pseudo-anonymous. We've disclosed from day one that votes aren't actually intended to be anonymous and that we intend to eventually publish that data, but it's worrying nonetheless.

It's hard to be fair to everyone--or, rather, it's hard to make everyone happy while simultaneously being fair.

For that problem, you may be able to keep the old data anonymized as it is now (without de-anonymizing), while only offering de-anonymized options starting from a certain date in the future.

 

[Bob Hawkes]

I really preferred the thanks / like / agree / dislike / disagree system without any anonymous voting period.

Even then (and now), I rarely click dislike or disagree. I would rather leave a comment than doing that, and certainly over leaving anonymous downvotes.

I think that system encouraged more dialogue via actual comments than just leaving anonymous votes.

I tend to agree with the view expressed a bit ago by @bmugford and others in this thread about the anonymous dislike voting being negative to the community, and not, that I can see, serving any useful purpose. It seems, as case noted, that some are particularly hard on newcomers simply asking questions.

I personally would probably prefer a system that we take out dislike altogether. Also, that it be suggested that anyone leaving a disagree should add a comment briefly explaining why they disagree. I have no problem with people expressing disagreement, and it is valuable to counter ideas that are expressed by may not be sound, but to be helpful in a forum surely it is better to share why you disagree.

-Bob

 

[bmugford]

This guy opened a thread with ca 20 replies.
They massacred him

Show attachment 244730

Show attachment 244731

What did he wrong?
What are those trolls disagreeing with?

I agree. This is basically a new domain investor, and they have a -8 for simply asking a question?

Then another -10 for asking a question?

What did they do wrong?

You will notice I have multiple responses in that thread.

The OP seemed like they were genuinely interested in learning and were courteous.

This negative downvote system really hurts meaningful engagement IMO.

@Paul

Brad

 

[QUAD DOMAINS]

@Peter45

Thank you for the reference.

The abuse of downvotes here is truly unacceptable. Especially with this era’s rising interest in domains; and the opportunity to teach/learn. The @NamePros team is obviously tolerant of The Downvote Gang’s behavior. After all, they LITERALLY play host to it.

Instead of constructively capitalizing on the thirst for knowledge many new investors have, this platform is becoming the antithesis of an environment that fosters healthy dialogue and helps position investors for success. It’s rather unfortunate on a number of levels.

Badges, seniority, ad-space and counterintuitive communication sums up NamePros pretty well at this point. One can receive helpful information from those who believe in being of service; but The Downvote Gang seems hell-bent on making NamePros “a read-only platform”.

🗣 Hopefully people like @Domain noob recognize there’s no such thing as a stupid question when making a concerted effort to learn and pave a way for your business to thrive. Despite QUAD’s unwarranted negative impact score, the door to request an unbiased perspective is always open.

The Downvote Gang will come out swinging; but the truth expressed here will be applicable regardless.

Mel
QUAD Domains

 

[bmugford]

Downvoting options should be disabled.

Most of the downvotes came from people who are complaining about downvoting in this thread. That seems to be a common occurrence.

Agreed, but you can't have accountability without transparency. One is a prerequisite for the other.

This is going back to responsibility, accountability, and transparency. It's hard to hold people accountable when they're anonymous.

Looking at the top downvoters, I suspect there's quite a bit of correlation between people who are downvoted and people who downvote others. That's a concerning cycle of toxicity indicating that anonymous voting doesn't work.

Paul,

Would you agree that certain people and/or subjects receive a disproportionate amount of downvotes?

Isn't there any way to just disable downvotes going forward?

That way you would not have to disclose the previous downvote data, but at the same time also not carry on the same system going forward.

There is still the dislike / disagree option, or just leaving a comment.

Brad

 

[Lox]

Isn't there any way to just disable downvotes going forward?

Nope.

This DownFu* is getting a lot of people out of NPs (X). “Maybes“ are not going to end this …. and if the management doesn’t want to recognize the outcome … then, in a year-two there is no more NamePros … Let’s see

Seriously …

Regards

 

[bmugford]

Nope.

This DownFu* is getting a lot of people out of NPs (X). “Maybes“ are not going to end this …. and if the management doesn’t want to recognize the outcome … then, in a year-two there is no more NamePros … Let’s see

Seriously …

Regards

It was me.
I wanted someone to talk about downvoting.
I undid my -5, your move, @Paul.

Stop empowering anon bullies and shills —

I really preferred the thanks / like / agree / dislike / disagree system without any anonymous voting period.

Even then (and now), I rarely click dislike or disagree. I would rather leave a comment than doing that, and certainly over leaving anonymous downvotes.

I think that system encouraged more dialogue via actual comments than just leaving anonymous votes.

Brad

 

[kor]

Most of the downvotes came from people who are complaining about downvoting

I'm downvoting the downvote option.

ANARCHY!

 

[Kenny]

There actually is a place where nP expectations are defined.
It is a little dated, and perhaps the mods could update it, but here it is.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/expectations-for-respect-and-constructiveness.845259/

It is also linked in my sig, the outstanding saying from one of the legacy mods, Jeff.

Be Cool - Be Polite - Be Professional

Pretty good way to do business (and this is a Business Community Forum) in my opinion.

Concerning the annon downvoting thing, I understand there must be serious complications to revising / repairing / eliminating it or after all the complaints it would already be fixed.

I personally have never downvoted a post, and I doubt that I have disliked a post even 10 times in the 19 yearsI have been a member here.
If I had a problem with a topic or a post, and I thought it important enough to me, I would post my opinion in that thread.

Hiding behind the wall and never expressing what your problem is with a post is not only cowardly, but no-one understands what YOU think the problem may be.
And thus, if you are using this as a teaching moment, the poster, as well as the community will never learn.

And that is what nP is about.
Helping other members of the community grow as domainers.
Especially new members.
Some people dont seem to remember, back when they first joined how much every remark, positive and negative impacted them.

We are here to help each other.

“Everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know absolutely nothing about.
Be kind.
Always.”
-Robin Williams

Peace,
Kenny

 

[cooljub]

Personally, I don't like quick replies and downvotes being anonymous. At the same time, I'm a little worried about suddenly deanonymizing a bunch of data that was previously pseudo-anonymous. We've disclosed from day one that votes aren't actually intended to be anonymous and that we intend to eventually publish that data, but it's worrying nonetheless.

It's hard to be fair to everyone--or, rather, it's hard to make everyone happy while simultaneously being fair.

How about removing them and discounting them from the totals? Might that be an option? Is it even possible?

 

[QUAD DOMAINS]

@bobhawkes

Here’s another example of the downvote ridiculousness here on NamePros:

New user joins forum.

QUAD literally says “Greetings!” and it has -2 downvotes…..so far. (See attachment.)

Folks are literally downvoting a welcoming statement. Imagine what impression this leaves on new users about who’s who on the platform. This is entertainment at this point for the folks running NamePros apparently. Because of things like this, “The Downvote Gang” will soon become “The Downvote Mob” acting under the guise of being “NamePros”. #counterintuitive.

Mel
QUAD Domains

 

[Peter45]

Sometimes, though, it's best to not take the downvotes too personally.

You are missing the point LCD

It's not about personal feelings, it's about improving the forum's quality.
Mod Paul's reference to "feelings" - justifying the status quo in order to protect the feelings of those Gold accounts and Vip members who desire anonymity - unfortunately has highjacked the discussion:

That one person is still a human with feelings. Part of the job of a moderation team--or any oversight body--is to protect the minority from the majority. Several people have expressed concern about their votes suddenly becoming public, and those concerns are both understandable and justified, regardless of what we've stated our plans are.

The main question is whether anon downvoting improve the discussion within this community.
It is abundantly clear that it doesn't.

a) Your disagreeing with an opinion without saying why, is pointless.
The community doesn't learn nothing from your downvoting.

b) As soon as a posting contains more than 1 statement downvoting that posting means squat because the community cannot understand what is disagreed with.

But the worst part is, given a) and b) anon downvoting has become a way to hit people: the target of anonymous downvoting has shifted from the content of a posting to the attitude i.e. the character of the poster.

That's the main reason why anon downvoting hinders the discussion within this community.

 

[QUAD DOMAINS]

Sometimes, though, it's best to not take the downvotes too personally. The implication in that case is that the response didn't really have content. It's better to simply do a like or thanks button, rather than perhaps a comment that is a general greeting.
Nonetheless, it is interesting that sometimes members with signficant downvotes have a useful comment that gets them into trouble. And the comments may be worthwhile seriously considering, even if not popular.

Thanks for chiming in @LoveCatchyDomains!

The sheer possibility that posting “Greetings!” when someone introduces themselves would go against an unspoken forum etiquette is rather ridiculous. Especially considering there are far more concerning things that are stated here on the regular.

It’s increasingly clear that being too positive elicits more negative downvotes on NamePros. It’s definitely not something to lose sleep over; but it does make one ponder the real life implications of people believing things like this are somehow fine professionally.

Mel
QUAD Domains

 

[Paul]

Why not just get rid of the ability to upvote and downvote in their own right? Then the post score can only be affected by quick replies which aren't anonymous.

Other staff members who are more familiar with the plans have already commented on that, but the voting system is necessary for features we plan to implement down the road. It also offers a level of granularity that the quick reply system lacks. While we aren't currently considering removing votes, we're certainly open to changing their behavior.

This begs another question. Can't you simply put the old reputation system back into use? The system without the + and - options. It just worked.

It had other issues, especially on the technical side. The current system offers a lot more flexibility: we can prevent people from gaming the system with voting rings, for example. We can also weight votes differently based on who they're coming from, which forum the content is in, and so on.

The long term goal remains to deanonymize all votes and use them as a way to let the community self-moderate, to an extent. However, a lot of tinkering needs to be done to get there--it's important that we avoid creating an environment in which a bunch of NamePros insiders scare away everyone else.

 

[Paul]

Why do you love making Namepros toxic with anon dvs?

Personally, I don't like quick replies and downvotes being anonymous. At the same time, I'm a little worried about suddenly deanonymizing a bunch of data that was previously pseudo-anonymous. We've disclosed from day one that votes aren't actually intended to be anonymous and that we intend to eventually publish that data, but it's worrying nonetheless.

It's hard to be fair to everyone--or, rather, it's hard to make everyone happy while simultaneously being fair.

 

[Peter45]

There should be an account penalty issued for being a habitual downvoter. If they (NamePros) aren’t going to rid the platform of the downvote, they should at least equally distribute the negative impact. (Ex: For every 5 threads you downvote, you receive a negative profile point.) After receiving so many negative profile points, you receive a bright red habitual downvoter badge on your profile. That ought to discourage habitual downvoting behavior.

Thoughts?

Anonymous downvoting has two aspects:
a) signalising disagreement with a posting
b) punishing its author by lowering his Impact Score

The - extremely toxic - consequences for the community life of anonymously penalising/punishing posters derive from b)


The solution: sever the connection between a) and b)

Anonymous downvoting won’t affect IS anymore. It won’t penalise the poster’s account anymore.

You keep your anonymous downvoting,
the feelings of your Gold Account and Vip Member friends are safe,
nobody cares anymore about being downvoted.

Everybody is happy


And downvoting trolls disappear because where there is no chance of hurting people there is no fun.
How about that

 

[Peter45]

That each member should be treated the same way, nobody can disagree with that.

So, why 5 forum members think that advertisers receive special treatment when it comes to moderation? and/or that it's not true that mods cut ties with advertisers who pushed that line in the past?

Paul, aren't you interested in knowing about the reasons for the 5 downvotes?
I think you should because those 5 downvotes can be read as 5 forum members saying that you are lying.

#46

 

[Paul]

I believe it’s variable. Other staff have already written in more detail about how it works, but the rough idea is that the more positive feedback you’ve received (upvotes, thanks, likes, agrees), the more impact you can have on other people’s content, both positive and negative.

Some people who have abused this can’t leave any downvotes, for example.

 

[Paul]

If it is isolated to a handful of bad actors, maybe another option is to create some policy around what is considered "abuse" of the system.

Then, if specific accounts are seen as abusing the system take appropriate action.

Currently, we do restrict people who abuse it, but that problem seems to be a lot rarer than people think. Most of top downvoters are also the top upvoters--and, with a few exceptions, they don't really seem to play favorites beyond expected biases (for example, individuals who might not like a particular company).

The biggest issue is that it doesn't take much to discourage a newbie--as has been quite reasonably pointed out by a number of people in this thread. It's just not fair to immediately lambast a newcomer with downvotes when they haven't had any time to get to know the community.

We're hoping to put the data in Elasticsearch in the near future so we can draw more concrete conclusions, with the goal of eventually opening up that data to the community.

 

[Paul]

Do you have a time frame on this, because this issue has been going on for an awfully long time?

Well, on which part? Temporarily disabling votes should happen fairly soon; we just have to come up with some balanced quick replies. We don't have a timeframe for re-enabling votes and deanonymizing them, though--that'll take longer.

What could the argument be against deanonymizing everything?

The strongest argument revolves around the discrepancy between how we intended for votes to be used and how they're actually being used. We had intended to use them as a way to let the community have a hand in ranking content. Just because content is within our rules doesn't necessarily mean most people want to see it. This could eventually mean more sorting options, too; for example, when I'm reading a discussion, I prefer to know which opinions are controversial, as I find that those are often the most valuable.

However, the point system is being gamified more than I would've liked. You don't really get anything by having a higher impact score; there isn't really any incentive to solicit upvotes or discourage downvotes. Yet, people are still getting rather angry and competitive with points, and that's even affecting newcomers. Nothing actually happens if their content gets downvoted--it's purely a morale issue.

This shouldn't be too surprising, and it stems from the post quality system being designed for use with features that are still in development. However, it also means that if we start deanonymizing votes, we're going to create an angry mob of people harassing each other for downvoting. Many of the top downvoters are the same people who are vocally complaining about downvotes; what happens when they all see each other downvoting content? Are they going to understand that they should be adjusting their own behavior, or are they going to get angry at each other and insist that their own downvotes are warranted? Cognitive dissonance is a hell of a beast. It's arguably irresponsible for us to immediately deanonymize everything and unleash an angry mob.

Note that this is my interpretation of what I believe to be the strongest argument against my own opinion, so I may not be presenting it in the most convincing manner. While I would prefer that everything be immediately deanonymized, I do acknowledge the merits of this counterargument.

 

[bmugford]

The sheer possibility that posting “Greetings!” when someone introduces themselves would go against an unspoken forum etiquette is rather ridiculous. Especially considering there are far more concerning things that are stated here on the regular.

This type of thing is a problem.

Why would anyone get downvotes for that comment?

There are a lot of things @QUAD DOMAINS posts that I don't really agree with, but is leads to a discussion.

Just leaving downvotes, especially for a "Greetings" comment, is unreasonable.

Brad

 

[bmugford]

There a thousands of examples showing how ridiculous this tool is


This guy informed the community about an email he received from DAN re their connection with Afternic.
He didn't say anything, he just posted the email.

Show attachment 244986

"Well, I don't like Dan's integration within Afternic, so I'll give a thumb down.
Click.
There you go."

These 4 morons didn't realise that downvoting a posting you are penalising its poster.

Through this dysfunctional tool this community has penalised someone who did us a favour

Meanwhile, you got -3 for discussing downvotes.

The current system has issues.

 

[Paul]

And downvoting trolls disappear because where there is no chance of hurting people there is no fun.
How about that

Most people who feel hurt by their impact score going down are also going to feel hurt by downvotes.

 

[NameInbox]

Part of the job of a moderation team--or any oversight body--is to protect the minority from the majority.

Minority - it's admins and mod team. Majority all common users

p.s. I got it only now: Probably NP staff are using downvotes most of all
They wanna some likes too, but users are not so generous to them.

It's old but good post

The Psychology of Social Media: Why We Like, Comment, and Share Online​

https://buffer.com/resources/psychology-of-social-media/